In Praise of Ferries
Bay of Islands and Rangitoto, New Zealand dispatch #5
In this fifth and last dispatch, we're starting in the Bay of Islands on the northeast coast of New Zealand's North Island, visiting Rangitoto Island near Auckland, and finishing back at home. We find water in ancient wells, more harvested rainwater, mangrove swamps, waterfalls, sea, surf, and our own Puget Sound. We’ll see it all first and last from a ferry. Follow the links to find more on travel and triathlons through the lens of water.
A ferry
Ferries have always held a special place in my heart. For my first year of high school, a ferry—the Gosport ferry running between Portsmouth and Gosport in the UK—took me to school. Years later, a ferry—this time from Portsmouth to St Malo, in France—took us to start our honeymoon. We live on a ferry island in Puget Sound. And now, on Christmas Eve, a ferry from Opua to Okiato takes us to start the next stage of our New Zealand trip, to the Bay of Islands.
A Well
Our AirBnB is a stone’s throw from the site of New Zealand’s first capital. There’s not much to see on the site now beyond this plaque and an abandoned well.
Rainwater
The well is now dry. Our AirBnB hosts let us know that our drinking water here also comes from the roof and is untreated and unfiltered. It tastes great! The AirBnB is a lovely cottage very much in the Victorian British imperial style. It even has a proper verandah which serves as my writing nook.
Mangrove Swamps
We had not realized before this trip that the northern half of New Zealand’s North Island has a climate that is close to subtropical, and features mangrove swamps along its coast. There’s just one species, Avicennia marina, which is shown in the photograph below taken on our Christmas day walk through a rainforest and along a coastal path. The picture shows the aerial roots, or pneumatophores, that allow the plant to absorb oxygen directly from the air.
Beaches
Boxing day finds us at one of the area’s superb beaches, where we enjoy some swimming and snorkeling.
Waterfall
The following day we take another ferry over to Paihia, where we rent a kayak to paddle up to the Haruru waterfall. Did I mention that it can be windy in New Zealand? How about that it’s windy most of the time? Anyway, the three plus miles to the waterfall is against the current and the wind and takes us two hours.
More beaches
Elliott Bay beach along the Secret Coast route is among the best we’ve ever visited, with surfing waves at one end and calm water for swimming at the other, and tide pools in between and even a tunnel to a secret cove.
Auckland
On New Year’s Eve we leave Okiato by ferry and head down to Auckland, where we fail to stay awake for the fireworks, but manage to capture the first sunrise of 2025.
Rangitoto Island
On New Year’s Day we take another ferry, this one to Rangitoto Island, New Zealand’s youngest volcano which emerged from the sea just off Auckland a mere 600 years ago. We had planned to visit Rangitoto with
, who has written many times and lovingly about the island in her publication The Turnstone, most recently here, but scheduling changes meant that we had met Melanie on Christmas Eve instead and so visit the island without a guide. The island has been cleared of invasive predators and is now a haven for indigenous birds. We tramp up a track (Kiwi for hike up a trail) through lava fields reminiscent of Hawai’i’s Big Island to the summit, and down via a more primitive track which offers us views of Auckland and neighboring Motutapu Island.
Honolulu
We spend our last day between checkout and our flight on a drive around The Coromandel, a peninsula south and east of Auckland that is getting quite busy as peak summer holiday season arrives. A night flight with a lay flat seat, courtesy of 30 years’ worth of American Express points, takes us to Honolulu, where thanks to another unforced error (#5, for those keeping score at home) we’re spending a night. We arrive too early to check in and so follow our Hawai’ian shuttle driver’s advice—"it’s cheaper than Uber and you’ll see more interesting things"—to take The Bus (as they call the bus in Honolulu) to Ala Moana beach. She wasn’t kidding. The number 20 bus passes through run down industrial areas alongside shelters for the unhoused to the glitzy shops of Waikiki, covering the extremes of inequality in just a few short miles.
Hawai’i hits differently arriving from New Zealand. There’s a palpable continuity between the kia ora and the aloha that softens what might otherwise be a harsh transition. Perhaps we’re just more open to it all now. Mahalo, Hawai’i.
One more ferry
Our evening flight from Honolulu gets us to Everett’s Paine Field at almost midnight. An Uber ride gets us to the ferry terminal in time to be the only walk on passengers on the last ferry home at 1 am. Despite the late hour, the Washington State Ferry staff go out of their way to help us with our luggage including a rolling bike bag so bulky that it looks like we’re smuggling a pony.
It feels like a lot like kia ora. Perhaps we brought a little home with us.
Thanks, as always, for reading or listening. This completes this miniseries of dispatches from New Zealand. You can find them all under the travel tag.
In the next post I’ll be reviewing 2024 and giving a preview of what’s to come in 2025.
For triathlon travel next year, we'll be revisiting Oceanside, California and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, before finishing the season with another visit to Ironman 70.3 Worlds, this time in Marbella, Spain. There's also a trip to Italy in the works. I'll be writing about all of them, along with the water issues that are sure to find me in each place.
Never been to New Zealand - it does sound so lovely. Ferries are great! I take a ferry to work across the Mersey most days - it's just the best way of starting and findishing the work day.
This is bringing back fond memories of visiting New Zealand.
And of the Gosport ferry!
(I’m on the IW, so ferries are an important part of life!)